Lars von Trier

Director and screenwriter Lars von Trier was one of the splashiest talents that Danish - indeed European - cinema had produced in years. His reputation as one of a few genuine "enfants terribles" of c...
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Sci-fi definitely has its Emo side: bleak, solemn, and contemplative. Some trace it back to Hal, the moody mainframe from 2001, but it goes back as far as Fritz Lang's pioneering dystopic vision in Metropolis.
While we hold our breath for the release of Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón's hat tip to a morose future, here is a short list of seminal sci-fi buzzkills.
Solaris
Worshiper of esoterica Steven Soderbergh remade this somber Russian sci-fi classic. His version was even more pensive and sad, and 100 times more beautiful.
Melancholia
This profoundly grim tale proved Lars von Trier could loosen his grip on his dogma about film artifice without checking his misanthropy at the door. The result is excruciating, but oddly soulful.
Blade Runner
Lang's Metropolis resonates throughout Ridley Scott's masterwork about androids that are so alienated they think they're human. Like teenagers, only smarter.
The Road
Don't eat before you see this movie. And you won't want to eat after it. The Road might be the perfect diet.
Soylent Green
This cult film our cringeworthy future delivers the granddaddy of all twist endings. It would make a perfect double feature with The Road. But you'll want to hold the popcorn.
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The organizers of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival have released the full list of films they're planning to screen during the Sept. 5 - 15 fete. It's a decidedly more down to earth list of titles than appeared at Cannes in May but may boast even more Oscar contenders: films like August: Osage County, The Fifth Estate, Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, and one very special new film from Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises. Here are five takeaways we had from this year's TIFF lineup, and below that, you'll find a list of select titles from the lineup for which we're especially excited.
1. Character is King — Deeply felt character studies dominate the lineup this year rather than movies driven more by visual flash. Some are more or less traditional biopics like Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. Ron Howard's Rush emphasizes the clash of personalities between Formula 1 drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) as much as it does the races. And Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, perhaps the biggest visual spectacle on the TIFF lineup, is notable for being a portrait of a female astronaut (Bullock) and her struggle to survive after an accident while also dealing with her lingering emotional distress following the death of her daughter. Toronto this year is truly an actor's market. Even more so because...
2. A Bunch of Actors Are Trying Their Hand at Directing — Jason Bateman is making his feature-film directing debut with the spelling bee revenge comedy Bad Words, while James Franco is following up his (pretty much unwatched) Hart Crane and Sal Mineo biopics with his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God. And of course Joseph Gordon-Levitt will unspool his directorial debut, Don Jon, which is also the first time we've seen him with a gelled-up pompadour.
3. Cory Monteith Is Well Represented – The late Glee star has not one but two films at TIFF, Gia Milani's All the Wrong Reasons and Josh C. Waller's McCanick, both of which will make their world premiere at the fest.
4. This is the Place for Smaller, More Personal Films — While Cannes can still celebrate movies that might not otherwise find an audience (like Abdellatif Kechiche's Palme d'Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color, also at TIFF), Toronto goes all-in for small films. Just this past May Cannes got showy movies from big, flashy directors like Roman Polanski, the Coen Brothers, Baz Luhrmann, Nicolas Winding Refn, Stephen Soderbergh, and Takashi Miike. But this year Toronto will draw Steve McQueen, Kelly Reichardt, Stephen Frears, Jason Reitman, and Alex Gibney, often the makers of quieter, more introspective films — films that may not even have found a distributor yet. That's ultimately why...
5. Toronto Is More Important Than Cannes — Actor and Lars von Trier repertory member Jean-Marc Barr once told me, "Cannes is now like the G8 summit." It's pretty corporate and not as essential these days for films really looking for a distributor. Looked at another way, Palme d'Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color still doesn't have a North American distributor. However, Toronto is the perfect laboratory for testing out films with a North American audience — if Franco's Child of God doesn't get a distributor after TIFF, it might not get one at all. You can also see Toronto as the first stop on the Oscar circuit. If there's a groundswell of support for Sandra Bullock for Best Actress consideration for Gravity, it'll be because buzz was first generated among potential Oscar voters at Toronto, not Cannes.
Here are some of the most notable films appearing TIFF 2013. What are you looking forward to?
The Fifth Estate Bill Condon, USA (World Premiere) OPENING NIGHT
Life of Crime Daniel Schecter, USA (World Premiere) CLOSING NIGHT
August: Osage County John Wells, USA (World Premiere)
Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom Peter Chadwick (World Premiere)
Rush Ron Howard, United Kingdom/Germany (International Premiere)
All the Wrong Reasons Gia Milani, Canada (World Premiere)
The Armstrong Lie Alex Gibney, USA (North American Premiere)
Bad Words Jason Bateman, USA (World Premiere)
Blue Is The Warmest Color Abdellatif Kechiche, France (North American Premiere)
Child of God James Franco, USA (North American Premiere)
Dallas Buyers Club Jean-Marc Vallée, USA (World Premiere)
Don Jon Joseph Gordon-Levitt, USA (Canadian Premiere)
Gravity Alfonso Cuarón, USA/United Kingdom (North American Premiere)
Labor Day Jason Reitman, USA (World Premiere)
McCanick Josh C. Waller, USA (World Premiere)
Night Moves Kelly Reichardt, USA (North American Premiere)
Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch, USA (North American Premiere)
Philomena Stephen Frears, United Kingdom (North American Premiere)
12 Years a Slave Steve McQueen, USA (World Premiere)
The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu) Hayao Miyazaki, Japan (North American Premiere)
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
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Orson Scott Card has already come under serious fire for his open opposition to marriage equality, and his generally homophobic comments. The Ender's Game author wrote a controversial piece in Mormon Times on the subject and is on the board of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex unions. In response to Card's views, a small online group called GEEKS Out launched an initiative to have people boycott the upcoming film adaptation of Ender's Game.
In response to this movement and in light of the recent Supreme Court rulings on same sex marriage, the bestselling author has spoken out once again: "Ender's Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984," Card said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly, "With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state. Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute."
The way we see it, there are two sides to this movie boycott issue. On the one hand, it's a real shame that Ender's Game fans are missing the opportunity to watch their beloved characters come to life on the big screen, or that they're being made to feel guilty for going to see the movie. After all, the film doesn't espouse or even begin to address Card's ideas about homosexuality. On the other hand, it's pretty disturbing that the creator of this story is a proponent of antiquated anti-sodomy laws and once claimed that "many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse" and "many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally."
How much should Orson Scott Card's comments impact our decision to see (or not to see) Ender's Game? After all, Lars von Trier made some off-putting comments about being able to "understand Hitler," but he's still an undoubtedly brilliant and successful filmmaker. And despite the homophobic controversy surrounding the president of Chick-fil-A, people are still flocking to the fast-food chain for some delicious, cholesterol-filled, heart attack-inducing chicken nuggets. But can we really put money into the pockets of such controversial figures and still have peace of mind? By buying these products, whether they be movie tickets or fried chicken, are we actually supporting agendas that we philosophically disagree with? Is there even an answer to these questions?
Ender's Game is a 1985 science fiction novel about a boy drafted into military school to fight an alien invasion in an apocalyptic future. The upcoming adaptation stars Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, and Abigail Breslin. With the film's November release date approaching and this extra fuel added to the fire, it will be interesting to see how Orson Scott Card's political opinions affect the movie's box office performance and publicity campaign.
Follow Caroline On Twitter @Carolinesb | Follow Hollywood.Com On Twitter @Hollywood_com
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The title of Lars von Trier's newest film is pretty self-expalantory. Nyphomaniac tells the story of a self-diagnosed sex addict (played by the director's muse Charlotte Gainsbourg, of course) who recounts her past erotic journeys to a man who discovers her beaten in an alley. The woman's name is Joe, and in true von Trier style, her story is very shocking.
The two-part film consists of eight chapters, covering Joe's life, from birth to age 50. In the first clip from the movie, we see a scene from Chapter One: The Compleat Angler. This portion of the film covers a train ride that Joe took as a teenager with her more experienced friend B. The girls make a bet to see which one of them can have sex with the highest number of men during the journey. The winner will receive a bag of chocolate sweets.
In the clip, B explains to young Joe (played by model Stacey Martin) how to seduce a boy on the train. The premise seems straightforward enough, but as always when the avant garde filmmaker Lars von Trier is involved, there's an underlying eerie (and perhaps just downright creepy) tone that pervades the scene and fills viewers with the undeniable sense that something is just not right.
Nymphomaniac hits theaters in Denmark on Christmas Day, and in all likelihood, a U.S. release will follow shortly. We hope so anyway.
Follow Caroline on Twitter @carolinesb | Follow Hollywood.com on Twitter @Hollywood_com
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Filmmaker Lars von Trier is all about foreplay. His upcoming movie Nymphomaniac (starring Shia LaBeouf) might deal with sex addiction in the most ferociously head-on way possible — by having its actors actually sleep with each other — but until release, the writer/director is toying with his audiences. Or flirting with them, rather. Von Trier dropped some subtle sexuality in the first poster for the film, a proverbial Rorschach Test honing in on our Freudian impulses. In this latest visual venture, von Trier cranks up the volume on his provocative message, creating the equivalent to a Highlights Hidden Picture puzzle in an image just loaded with suggestive material.
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Each week, Hollywood gives us something to whine about, and the week of April 29 was no different. We could make a drinking game out of this week, but that would be too dangerous. Instead, we'll stick to the usual formula: varying levels of alcoholic respite depending on how bothersome the week's issues are. Is your biggest complaint this week a flimsy one? How about a light cocktail to take the edge off? Got a real bone to pick with a celeb or entertainment entity this week? Go ahead, grab a drink that'll put hair on your chest. Here are the week's entertainment stories that are forcing us to seek a bubbly or boozy refuge. And maybe an idea or two about how you should wash them down.
Sip a Little White Wine Sangria
Because Kanye West is at again. He took to Twitter with a two simple words and now we're all forced to lose our minds speculating.
Lars von Trier's new movie poster is just two parentheses. But really, it's forcing us to be the perverts to fill in the female anatomy blank.
Someone needs to buy Al Pacino a calendar. He just dropped out of a movie two months before its release.
It turns out, celebrities and horse owners have a lot in common. Apparently, they employ the same thought process when naming their babies and their horses.
Upgrade Your Buzz With a Margarita
Harrison Ford doesn't seem to be too jazzed about his new movie. This video doesn't bode well for Ender's Game, does it?
Jaden Smith is supporting Justin Bieber's harem pants movement. At the cost of looking like he has baby legs.
Everyone at The Office says Steve Carell isn't coming back. But we refuse to believe Michael Scott would miss this finale.
What the hell, Showtime? This Dexter poster is going to give us nightmares.
Go Ahead, Drink Some Straight Tequila
Lindsay Lohan has been arrested so many times, we can't keep track. No really, we tried and it's near impossible.
Amanda Bynes finally gave a reason for her madness. She wants to look like a famous stripper. Great, back to square one.
This whole Reese Witherspoon thing keeps getting worse. Now there's a second video of Jim Tosh scolding Witherspoon. Will it never end?
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
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Even at his subtlest, Lars von Trier can't avoid his provocative instincts. Today's evidence: the first poster for his near-pornographic double feature Nymphomaniac. What do you see in the below image? Clearly von Trier's Melancholia follow-up will be a definitive exploration of proper grammatical bracketing. Right? Okay, maybe not.
Little is known about von Trier's two films in the way of plot, but from the beginning of the casting process, Nymphomaniac was making headlines for its promise of explicit (read: not simulated) sex scenes featuring well known actors. The cast includes Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Willem Dafoe and Connie Nielsen and, due to the artistically raunchy material, the two feature-length films will be released in both soft and hardcore versions.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to the posters designers, Phillip Einstein Lipski and Maria Biilmann, who tried to “distill the intimacy and the obscenity of the film down to its simplest form. A form we hope will engage the audience in the universe of Nymphomaniac– one sexy piece of artwork at a time." So as far as building buzz for the films, think of this poster as foreplay.
Von Trier's Nymphomanaic Part 1 is expected to debut at a festival in the Fall with a proper release to follow. He won't be at the Cannes Film Festival this May — the filmmaker was notoriously banned after making pro-Nazi jokes at a Melancholia press conference in 2011, although von Trier insists that Nymphomanaic was not ready in time for the festival dates. Nonetheless, von Trier's sexploitation picture is on its way. Expect Part 1 to climax sometime before year's end.
Follow Matt Patches on Twitter @misterpatches
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I'm going to start this review off with a spoiler. Shia LaBeouf is awful. Haha. Just kidding. That's not a spoiler. We should all know by now that the naked music video star is pretty bad. The real spoiler is that at the end of The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, his newest movie which debuted at Sundance on Monday night, Charlie Countryman does not, in fact, die. That means this mess of a movie should really be called The Unnecessary Life of Charlie Countryman. Seeing it is, of course, unnecessary.
Remember last summer when Mr. LaBeouf made a big stink about how he thinks all studio movies suck and he's only making indies from now on because he thinks they're "art"? After watching this movie, we consider his declaration akin to someone saying he is only going to eat in fancy restaurants from now on and then sitting down to a dinner of Big Macs and Shamrock Shakes. Maybe Shia needs to make some better choices when considering "art."
This first feature from commercial director Fredrik Bond tries to latch onto the "magic realism" trend we're seeing at the festival, and Shia's character Charlie talks to the spirit of his recently deceased mother (Melissa Leo), who tells him, for no good reason, to go to Bucharest, Romania. He does. And, while on the plane, his seat-mate dies on his shoulder. He then gets involved with the passenger's daughter (a wasted Evan Rachel Wood with a bad haircut), the Romanian mafia, and Rupert Grint as a porn star wannabe with an erection that won't go away and an ecstasy addiction (between this and Daniel Radcliffe's gay sex scene in Kill Your Darlings, the Harry Potter boys are really using Sundance to bust out of their old wizard hats).
Yes, the movie swings from one incident to the next without making much sense or giving us any motivation for the characters' antics, other than Charlie's love at first sight for Wood's Gaby and some nefarious nonsense about a tape the mob wants to get a hold of. It's like the filmmaker sat down and wrote down a list of all the things he thinks are cool (strip clubs, drugs, youth hostels, pot smoking, mobsters, the cello, beating people up, Xanax, fairies, pain killers, having sex with Evan Rachel Wood, drugs, alcohol, drugs and alcohol, smoking, donuts, and drugs) and then found a way to shoehorn them all into a movie. As if piling cool on top of cool will make more cool. No, like the guy wearing the band's T-shirt to the concert, it just means you're trying too hard. It's like a collection of lame cliches that is searching for a larger meaning that it never finds. On top of that, there are the magical elements that never quite fit in, as if they were a larger part of the movie but then had to be edited out so that we could have more scenes of Gaby's mean boyfriend threatening everyone. How many of these do we need? Isn't 19 enough? And do we really need to see our hero running in slow motion through the streets? It's like Run, Shia, Run, but his bob won't get nearly the attention of Tom Tykwer's red-headed German.
The ending of the movie (which is also the beginning) is completely abysmal. Not only do we never learn the fate of Grint's character (who, last we saw was naked and super glued to a friend of his), but the resolution is never explained. Suddenly, the cops show up arresting everyone, and Charlie is saved, robbing us of the death we were promised and the one thing to look forward to before the credits rolled.
One of the biggest problems, of course, is LaBeouf himself. While it's great that he wants to make different movies (especially since he can retire forever on his Transformers money), he doesn't seem to choose quality projects or be a very versatile actor to pull them off. In this film, he mugs and runs around like he would in any other action movie. He does nothing but play Shia, and he pales in comparison to Wood, one of Hollywood's greatest young actresses who never gets the roles she deserves. And what is going on with Shia's body? He is all sinew, like he's on a tofu, yoga, and wildflower diet. He looks not like a sexy symbol but sort of like an anatomy model with a bad wig on. (Oh, speaking of which, at one point in the movie he calls someone else a "greasy f**k" with a complete lack of irony. Oh, Shia.)
LaBeouf's next role is in the very, very indie Lars von Trier movie Nymphomaniac, a movie that contains lots of real sex between the actor and, well, some other people. Let's see how he fares in that one. But if it's as awful as Charlie Countryman, maybe it's time for Shia to quit indie movies as well.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: Ascot Elite Entertainment]
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The actress will not be teaming up with Shia LaBeouf, Willem Dafoe, Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgard in the film, as was previously reported, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It is not known why Kidman, who is currently shooting Grace Kelly biopic Grace of Monaco, has bolted from the project, which hit the headlines even before filming begins over reports it will feature explicit sex scenes.
In the movie, Gainsbourg plays the titular nymphomaniac reflecting on her past sexual conquests.

While Les Misérables won't be in theaters for another few months, the world doesn't have to wait for Jean Valjean to bear witness to a strong-jawed hero leading a community of Europeans into a blaze of carnal glory: Willem Dafoe is at the head of a fresh group of actors joining Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac.
The Hollywood Reporter reveals that the shark-eyed power player — who has worked with von Trier in the past on the director's films Manderlay and Antichrist — will be playing an undisclosed role in the new erotica authentique. Joining Dafoe in the developing film are France's Jean-Marc Barr and Germany's Udo Kier (both of whom are von Trier returners), Denmark's Omar Shargawi, and the United Kingdom's Kate Ashfield, Caroline Goodall, and Saskia Reeves.
This revelation more than doubles the size of von Trier's cast. It was reported last week that Uma Thurman would be taking a part in Nymphomaniac, starring alongside the likes of Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Shia LaBeouf, and Christian Slater
[Photo Credit: Patti Ouderkirk/Wenn]
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Title

Directed "Manderlay," the second film in his "U.S.A. – Land of Opportunities" trilogy; starred Bryce Dallas Howard, Danny Glover, and Willem Dafoe

Garnered critical acclaim for "Breaking the Waves"

Began making the film "Dimension" in three-minute segments to be finished each year; the film was scheduled to be completed in the year 2024

Directed Nicole Kidman in "Dogville," about a woman on the run from a team of gangsters hiding out in the small town of Dogville; first film in his "U.S.A. – Land of Opportunities" trilogy

Wrote and directed "Liberation Pictures/Image of a Relief" as a graduate school project; won second prize at an annual European Film School Competition and was promptly picked up by Britain's Channel 4

Appeared as an actor only in the Danish children's film "A World of Difference"

Helmed the second film made under Dogme 95, "The Idiots"

Directed the psychological disaster drama "Melancholia"; premiered at the Cannes Film Festival

With Thomas Vinterberg, presented their manifesto for a new cinematic movement called Dogme 95, requiring filmmakers to take a "vow of Chastity" and shoot films with no score, using natural light and other techniques

Directed Bjork in "Dancer in the Dark"; also co-wrote lyrics to songs; shared a Best Original Song Oscar nomination for "I've Seen It All"

Made a miniseries for Dutch TV, titled "The Kingdom"; later transferred to 35mm film and received an international theatrical release

Feature directorial debut, "The Element of Crime," the first in his "Europe" trilogy; also played the role of "Schmuck of Ages"

Made the student film "Orkide gartneren/The Orchid Gardener," which helped him gain admission to the Danish Film School

Summary

Director and screenwriter Lars von Trier was one of the splashiest talents that Danish - indeed European - cinema had produced in years. His reputation as one of a few genuine "enfants terribles" of cinema in the 1980s and 1990s did not stem simply from his call for Ingmar Bergman's death - so, he said, that other Scandinavian filmmakers could receive more attention - or his hurling an obscenity at Roman Polanski when his film "Europa" (1991) failed to receive the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Rather, the attention von Trier justly received stemmed from his playful experimentation and the darkly haunting atmosphere he evoked in settings which, whether set in the present like "Dancer in the Dark" (2000) or the past like "Dogville" (2004) somehow seemed futuristic and other-worldly. Part of von Trier's inventiveness stemmed from his refusal to honor conventions - exemplified by his famous Dogma 95 manifesto, in which von Trier and fellow Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg called for films to be made more simply, with hand-held cameras and available light, divesting themselves of modern fashions in filming and plotting. To some, he was an artistic trailblazer, to others, a self-aggrandizing provocateur; however, there was little doubt that the outspoken von Trier created films that were unmistakably - and unapologetically - entirely his own.

Name

Role

Comments

Bent Froge

Wife

married in 1997

Fritz Hartmann

Father

Had an affair with Lars' mother and is Lars' biological father

Inger Trier

Mother

Jewish; his mother had been active in the Danish Resistance during WWII; revealed to Lars on her deathbed in 1989 that he had been conceived as a result of an affair she had with her employer, Fritz Michael Hartmann

Ulf Trier

Father

Raised believing that he was his biological father

Education

Name

National Film School of Denmark

University of Copenhagen

Notes

Von Trier had phobias to crowds, fires, hospitals, shellfish, and the specter of death.

"I would like to say one thing: I like myself very much. I hate myself as a person, but I like myself as a director. That's why I cling to the profession." – Von Trier to Entertainment Weekly, April 2, 2004

"Nobody in the state of Denmark wanted to have anything to do with Lars. He was arrogant, crazy. He dressed up in black leather, looked like a skinhead, and insulted everyone around him. The only comforting element was that he was so tiny he was not physically threatening in the least." – Peter Aalbaek Jensen, co-owner of von Trier's production company, to Entertainment Weekly April 2, 2004

Von Trier was banned from the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2011 for a bizarre speech in which he said he sympathizes with Adolf Hitler. At a news conference for the film "Melancholia," the Danish filmmaker spoke about his German heritage, and in a rambling speech, said he understood and sympathized with Hitler. The director said afterward he had been joking and later issued an apology.

Von Trier has the letters F, U, C, and K tattooed across the four fingers of his right fist. The tattoo was inspired by Sean Penn's 1991 film "The Indian Runner."